wow. (attention G-S moderators: I know you always hoped I'd be at a loss for words at some point. Nota Bene: this post came closer than most. I apologize for the tease)
please note that I'm using this thread in a vain hope to render dormant all sub-threads. I say wow, partially because where purely non-tangible matters are concerned, I usually applaud extreme tactics, but in this case I'm profoundly stumped. Paul Feyerabend is certainly one of my favorite non-fiction authors, but even he wielded reason against itself. I'm impressed (and I'm not often impressed by how/the-manner-in-which/ people think-or at least pretend to), but this post raised the stakes a bit, albeit unwittingly, refuting reason BY EXAMPLE, therefore providing the only potentially compelling counterargument to the modification of the subject line wherein the string "Logic" suddenly plays a part.. taxomonical breakdown: 2 questions contrasted with the output of a 3rd, whereupon the outcome solves nothing, and the group of two bear a tenuous relation to the third. The 4th question is profoundly subject to the whims of fortune, temporality, and the instincts of the poor fellow who would dare use the "L" word on this newsgroup: based upon the past couple of hundred years of western civilization or so, I'd say that the intended target has a better chance than most, especially if he is allowed to draw upon past experience. Question 5 ignores the public record on the subject, and improperly contrasts the potential answers of the first set with it's own solution space. Whether or not someone remembers cretaceous technologies they have worked with does not provide a useful predictive measure of their ability to adapt to change or assimilate new technologies and their nuances. I'm not sure where the equation between familiarity with the specifics of predecessor technologies and the practice of perpetuating their continued usage came from, but certainly not from a sample size relevant enough to settle this issue. I'm going to skip a bit, because my potential point of insight has not been posted by anyone else as best my time-warner internet access point can reveal. Taking us to the matter of appreciation: I'm not sure this admonishment is best directed at someone who provides materials whereby individuals may study and aspire to be the best, since A) his materials are profoundly superior to many other competitive products B) he offers advice from a career marked by a profound lack of stagnation and a level of maintaining familiarity with emerging standards so extreme that he would up participating in the development process itself for various extant standards. Since your observations don't match the public record, and since the past 100 years of USA public schooling and the profession of psychology have profoundly failed humanity, I'll not directly address the last comment except to note that the noun is undescriptive at best. To address the previous replies: Peter had excellent insight & wording, but just in case his analysis is not 100% correct (as in, what if he did NOT lose a job to such an individual), I offer mine in order to force the available quibble space to converge to 0. Tomas Larus elagantly outlines the issues which concern me. Ms. McLeod adroitly points out the balance between no testing & too much of the same. Adam Lee re-emphasizes the ongoing need for support of the technologies dismissed out-of-hand by the original poster. Priscilla provides factual clarification & some fundamental insight. nrf posts a call for balance as a strategy for intellectual succes in this industry that binds us. His subsequent posts come the closest to a better way. in all cases, the matter boils down to this: your cognitive dualism won't stand. to abruptly divide the world between experienced, stubborn, older folk unfamiliar with the past 7 years of digital computing research, and newly matriculated folk who lack any exposure to large scale implementations of the technologies they would purpport to support, is to reduce yourself to the level of performance that many HR times are unjustly relegated to (DISCLAIMER: I'm aware of the cases where this is justified . . .). As the SLJ character in pulp fiction might start it out, THE TRUTH IS, the one common characteristic people afraid of new things, incapable of testing, and unfriendly to new ideas have is precisely the following: the characteristics I just described. Sure, there exist seasoned veterans who never learned to troubleshoot and can't handle changing LAN topologies any better than they manage their waning vitality. However, there also exist individuals straight out of "accredited" programs who know all kinds of nuances regarding C programming & assembler theory. They coast through college complete and fulfilled based upon the realization that this background COMPLETELY prepares them for desktop, server AND network/intermediate systems support. these individuals are typically roughly empirically indistinguishable from the sort you rail against, except for their current career position and related temporal factors. 2 assertions here: #1Two categories might not be enough to invoke when attempting to intelligently characterize the behaviour of the creatures who occupy the continum between lab-rat-wanna-be & digital network architecting deity. hence, the failure of my special friend, the overwhelming human tendency to simplify & break issues up into dichotomous compare & contrast sessions.. #2 A quality such as "he worked with the same exact fellers I'm branding as inflexible. therefer, he's inflexible tooo!" is not exactly compelling enough to generalize across millions of people, as your post requires in order to achieve coherency. The evils of oversimplifying matters into two possible outcomes when the truth violently contrasts with that model are part of our shared heritage, but our industry, where most ideas are at best a few decades old and profoundly run the risk of being empirically underexplored, is especially susceptible to oversimplifications, giving rise to many of the publically-aired disputes recorded in the newsgroup archives. To behave by lending legitimacy to these oversimplifications is to render yourself guilty of the behavior you condemn. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Thompson Alton" To: Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 3:56 PM Subject: RE: Logic and "Lab Rats" [7:44653] > Do you remember Mainframe systems??? Do you remember LU and PU and logic > controllers?? Do they all work the same as IP networks or VOIP and IP > telephony networks? > Do you know all the traffic in your data network??? You seem to be bitter > about something. Do you want someone with 20 years experience Appling a > network change without testing out first in a lab environment??? Last but > certainly not least, how many mainframe guys know IP networking. You provide > me a list.Answer is very few. Many PBX or Telecomm Engineer knows VOIP or IP > Telephony?? Answer is very few. Giving me dates when things start is like > tell me that we still need to go print a circuit board for two days and use > tubes, diodes, and transistors, instead a sing microprocessor. > > Finally, There are many people with 20 years of experience who feel that > they don't need to learn new technologies and therefore still trying fight > progress. We do not know every thing out there but at least we can try to be > knowledge as possible. > > You need to be more appreciative of people who want to be the best. Be > weather it be CCIE or Cissp. They have to study just like any other > professional. If my doctor doesn't put in at least 100 hours of training and > giving me a diagnostic, I will sue his pants off. > > Stop being an idiot Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=44694&t=44653 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
